Tag Archives: Context Florida

So I’ve joined the billions of other writers in the world who have helped to make the “open letter” the most popular thing since, like, internet porn.

Except my “open letter” is not directed at a celebrity, a la Miley Cyrus open letters. Instead, mine is directed at the other online article genre that is currently multiplying Gremlin-like to invade our monitors: the “list article.”

In late August, three teenagers in Oklahoma targeted and killed a random jogger for no other reason than because they were bored. The story is heartbreaking, maddening, and chilling, and it’s made even more so by their explanation: boredom.

Were these kids really saying that their own entertainment was the most important thing in the world, more important than other lives?

The more I thought about the story, the more I moved beyond my repulsion at just these three teens and considered the word “boredom” itself, how quickly we all employ it, but how little we deserve to use it.